ABSTRACT
Benetton is one of the largest European garment producers and its core business consists of designing, producing and selling garments for men, women and children in wool and cotton. Its clothing production is marketed under several brands: “United Colors of Benetton”, the flagship brand mainly for men and children, and Silsey, the fashion-oriented brand for women, represent respectively 77 percent and 18 percent of the total sales. Other minor brands, “The Hip Side” for trendy, “Play Life and Killer Loop” for the leisurewear, cover the remaining 5 percent. Benetton, with Zara, is considered an exception in a context of large international brands mainly owned by pure retailers, such as Gap, H&M, and Mango, that do not own factories, but keep market relations with large independent suppliers (Tokatly 2008: 23). Benetton is still renowned in the international literature as a firm that manufactures the majority of its products in Italy (Berger 2006; Dicken 2007; Tokatly 2008). If this was true in the past, today it is no more. In the last five years, Benetton has quickly increased the process of production relocation abroad and at present only 20 per cent of its products are manufactured in Italy, and it is foreseen that this percentage will halve in the next few years. The majority of the production is made in North Africa and in East Europe, but the recourse to the Asian producers, that did not appear in Benetton’s suppliers list until 2003, is greatly increasing. Parallel to this, production planning has deeply changed. Up to 2003, production was entirely based on two seasonal collections and 80 percent of the orders from the retailers were received before the beginning of the selling season. The remaining 20 percent were mainly reorders and, only in a small amount, orders of new products designed during the selling season. Today the number of collections has increased and the amount of orders received before the selling season has greatly decreased. In the contest of broadening production variety, the increase of foreign supplying, in particular from Asia, has deepened Benetton’s logistical problems. Furthermore, the newly adopted strategies have had tangible consequences on the garment district of Treviso that in the last few years has greatly downsized.
